It's been an interesting and emotional weekend this weekend. Not very emotional - or emotional in a "gushy" sense of the word - but emotional as in involving emotions on a greater level. I've been sick for the last week with a gastro type bug which had me starting a bit behind the eight ball. I was also a bit tired - work has been quite full on for the last two weeks. I was hoping to get a fair bit of work done this weekend, and I've probably got about 1/2 of what I wanted - which is good, but I'm still a bit scared about how it will all get done. I've also spent this weekend breaking binding machines and learning that sometimes people can do the jobs that they have been assigned, even without my help. (Shock horror!)

So - having set that as the background, I think you might start to get the idea that I am just feeling a little emotionally flat (of course enhanced by tiredness). This morning I was praying about some conversations I've had with people this weekend and about my struggle to be humble and just let other people do stuff. I was complaining to God about how hard life has been for the last few weeks - and just how I wanted him to take it all away and make everything better. And then it hit me - Everything is going to be all right - God is in Control. I know that sounds obvious, but sometimes it takes just a little "something" to realise that it is actually the case. It's amazingly comforting to just realise that. All of the relationships, all of the ideas, the future, the past and the present - it's in God's hands.

In Isaiah 64, Isaiah writes:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil, come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you!

For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

You come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways. But when we continued to sin against them, you were angry. How then can we be saved?

All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.

Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O LORD; do not remember our sins forever. Oh, look upon us, we pray, for we are all your people.

Isaiah 64:1 - 9 (NIV) 

And then in Isaiah 65 God replies saying

This is what the LORD says: “As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and men say, ‘Don’t destroy it, there is yet some good in it,’ so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all. I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live. Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me. 

Isaiah 65: 8 - 10 (NIV)

Thanks be to God that through Jesus' death on the cross we have the forgiveness of sins. Thanks be to God that He will not destroy us with the wicked, but that He will save us as part of hisremnant. Praise God that even despite our sinfulnes and our broken relationship with Him, he cares for us so that Paul can write "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." (Rom 8:28 NIV)